Sometimes I scroll back through my Facebook newsfeed.  Back to January 2013.  I don't know why I do other than perhaps a need to relive the reality and remember how close we came to losing our little girl.

I suppose her diagnosis started a good ten days or so before her actual diagnosis.  We had the flu, all of us.  I don't remember who had it first but I remember Feens suffered the longest.  Maybe five days with high fever and general 'this sucks' attitude.  Lots of nursing, lots of sleeping.  Our oldest daughter had it also, but her symptoms weren't nearly as drawn out as Feens' were.  Anton and I both suffered for a day, day and a half with fever and general 'this sucks' attitude and after some Elderberry syrup, Oscillo and extra Vitamin C and zinc, we were feeling better quickly.   Gia was better within two or three days but Feens just stayed sick.  It was Sunday morning when she woke up with this strange deep, bronchial breathing.  Not one to rush my kid to the ER for every little thing, I decided to wait it out, Dr. Google a bit, ask Facebook and go from there.  By evening, I was stressed.  I wondered if she was getting enough oxygen.  Off to the ER we go.  This is New Years Eve EVE, mind you, so waiting for the pediatrician to open would take another two days.  I wasn't sure we had two days.

The ER was a bust.  The first doctor swabbed her ears out, hitting her (then unknown) infected ear drum making her scream like someone was removing her finger nails with pliers.  I said 'no, no, we're done with that now.'  Another doctor came in later asking for a urine sample and decided we were going to treat with antibiotics for a UTI (one of our chief complaints was frequent urination including relapsing into having accidents - Feens had been potty trained well over a year by this point) and "possible pneumonia."  Fine.  We fill the prescription immediately and start that night.  The ER physicians assured me she'd be feeling better in 24 hours. 

New Years Eve and two or three doses of antibiotics later, Feens is still lethargic, breathing in this weird, deep, bronchial way, peeing the ped, crying a lot, sleeping even more, not wanting to eat, drinking a ton.  But we know we've got to give the antibiotics 24 hours....

Let it be known that, like, all of my mommy red flags were a blazing at this point, but I tried to relax and trust these stupid physicians.

We go to my mom's for NYE get-together and Feens has a few bites of peanut butter sandwich and chocolate milk.  She sleeps.  She wets my mom's couch.  She's still got her smoker's lung breathing.

New Year's Day.   All the same symptoms still plus she's dizzy.  She falls twice, hits her head.  She throws up.  Her fever is back.  After two days of antibiotics, her fever comes back after four days?  What the...??  I call the pediatrician's emergency line and talk to a nurse who tells me to take her back to the ER.  So we go.

This visit was even worse.  The two physicians I saw completely dismissed all of Athena's symptoms with a shrug, a pat on my leg and a "she just has a bad cold" justification.  Her pulse ox came back perfect every time despite the concerning breathing.  I was livid.  But we left.  What choice did I have?  I sure as shit didn't know what was going on with her....and these are the med school professionals, right?  RIGHT?

I slept with her that night.  I was terrified she'd stop breathing in the middle of the night.  She wet herself, she didn't want to eat, she continued the smoker's breathing which sounded like she'd just run 26 miles in the middle of dusty China.  I called the pediatrician and made an appointment for Thursday at 1:30pm.  I had to work Wednesday and I was really trying to believe she'd be okay.  At this point we were at four full days of antibiotics but all the same symptoms plus a fever.

Somehow we get through Wednesday.  I remember she ate a little more than previous days and seemed slightly chipper.  I took it as a good sign.

Thursday, I pick up my emaciated child, all 27 pounds of her (she was around 35 pounds before Christmas) and her blanket and I carry her from the car to the pediatrician's office.  Our wonderful, life-saving, not shit-taker pediatrician diagnosed her in seconds.

"Has anyone tested her for diabetes?"

Huh?

"Can she pee in a cup?" she asks me as I'm holding my lifeless child who can't even nurse at this point.  She is barely conscious.

"Yes, she can pee" I say with tears in my eyes.

Pee comes back spilling glucose and ketones - large ketones.

"We want to check her blood sugar" she says.

The nurse comes in with a little meter and pricks Athena's finger.  I remember the nurse saying "oh wow, that's really high..."   The number was 590.

I can hear the pediatrician berating the ER department at the Children's Hospital where I'd spent two nights of the previous four and telling the Endocrinology team they were sending over a dying child.  Maybe she didn't use the word 'dying' but I remember my heart landing in my gut like a piano hits the ground from 25 stories above.  There are no words.  I held my lifeless kid and just could not think for a second what was going to happen one, two, ten seconds from that moment.

She asked about an ambulance.  "No, I can take her" I say....so we go.  I call Anton, let him know.

We go BACK to the same ER but this time we are rushed through triage and the double doors fly open with no less than four medical officials (doctors, nurses?) standing in the door calling her name.  We won't be visiting the small ER rooms today, though.  We are in the trauma room.  There are posters with instructions on how to resuscitate the dying baby/toddler/child.  There is life-saving equipment all around me.  I am being asked to stand aside whilst doctors start IVs and heart monitors and all sorts of beeping equipment.  There is an oxygen mask and a blood pressure cuff and a little toe clamp.  My baby isn't moving.  She is breathing, but she is near comatose.  Her first blood sugars come back in the 600s.  All the rushing and talking quickly and phone calls and yelling send me into a spiral.  Anton is on his way.  I'm trying not to cry.  Someone comes in and asks me what I know about Type 1 diabetes and diabetic ketoacidosis to which I reply "nothing."  The woman tells me it's okay, they will teach me.  Part of her hospital stay will be about teaching me how to take care of her.  "Will she get better?" I ask...."yes" they say...."but there is no cure" they follow with.

More piano crashing from 25 stories above.

Child Life comes in with a stinky but cute pig (they put a Scentsy block in there, gross) and I put it by her.   She is not awake but she is conscious.  They say they'll come see us when we are settled in our regular room.  Tonight she will be in the PICU while they get her stable.

Pediatric Intensive Care.  Intensive Care.  Intensive.  It's like this bullet that ricochets off the walls around you and your eyes can't focus on its direction....

The PICU had its pitfalls.  The nurses were using incorrect lancets on her fingers so when we were able to go home two days later, we did so with ten bruised fingers.  Turns out they were using infant heel lancets and the head of the PICU called me personally to apologize for that.  Athena's metabolic screen normalized overnight.  She was moved to a regular room though she was officially diagnosed with Influenza A in all of this so there was some confusion as to where we would stay on the floor.  We finally settled into a room.  Athena was conscious and alert now and wanting to eat.  She came off the IV insulin and glucose and we gave her her very first injection on January 5th, 2013.  She took it like a champ.

We went home early January 6th and since then, we've educated ourselves a great deal and we are about to participate in our very first JDRF walk for fundraising toward finding a cure for Type 1 diabetes.  Athena is on an insulin pump now along with a continuous glucose monitor which is a level of technology I never knew existed before January 3rd, 2013.  I am very thankful I can keep my daughter alive with the help of these wonderful technological advancements.

Guess what I suck at?

You guessed it.  Blogging.  I use to rock this, too.  I guess being the mom of two (now three!) and a borrowed mama to a few more (I'm an in-home daycare provider too) keeps me pretty busy.

So I had another baby.  And it was epic.

My first two daughters were born via c-section.  It wasn't for lack of me trying to get them out of my vagina, because the gods know I sure tried my damndest.  But, alas, they had other plans and had to be cut out after hours of labor and pushing.  It was a bummer, to say the least.

I signed up for another home birth this time and whilst baby girl was not born at home, she did emerge from my vagina just as I'd hoped.  And before the interwebs gets all a flutter with "oh noes, did you nearly die?!"  No.  I wanted drugs. *wink*  Turns out pushing a baby out of your vagina really hurts bad enough to make you want to die.  Some women can just wing it in their birth tub but apparently not me, not for this birth.  I transferred after pushing for awhile...a couple hours maybe?  I pushed against a cervical lip which is basically like saying 9.5cm dilated.  It HURT.  But that epidural rocked my world and as soon as it kicked in and I was able to return from my complete hysteria, I pushed her right out in 3 contractions.  I'm eternally proud of myself, drugs or not.  Are we done?  I dunno.  I think I want to try again for a home birth.  And I still don't feel done having babies.  I thought I would feel it but....nope.  So we'll see.  Hubs isn't on board.

Hubs???! You ask?  Why yes, that fool convinced me to marry him AGAIN.  December 27th.  We have far too many anniversary dates.  So far married life is equally as blissful as stubbing one's toe but hey, I never expected perfection.  Nah, we're pretty happy....well, content...since no one can live in a state of happiness for always.  We argue here and there but nothing like before, nothing like I'd hoped to avoid. I wake up most days just elated with my life.  Like I'm on drugs. 

Feens' T1 has been cooperating.  We didn't get a great reduction in her A1C (her average blood glucose) like we'd hoped, but we're still in the "okay" range for a toddler/preschooler.  She still gets most of her insulin after she eats because we just never know what she is going to eat and how much of it.  As the warmer months approach, things will change again because of her exercise levels.  She loves being outside and we're getting the kids a swing set for their birthday (new to us!) and so I imagine she'll be sweating outside a lot this spring and summer, making her blood sugars run lower than what we've been seeing over winter.

Bug is in first grade in public school right now.  I'm not terribly thrilled with the institution that is public school, but I do like her teacher this year.  I don't have as much interaction as I did with her kindergarten teacher, but the few times I've chatted with her, she seems lovely.  And kind of a hard ass.  Which Bug really responds well to.  Bug is reading like a champ and has been for months and she dresses herself in these whacked out mismatched outfits.  Her newest thing?  She does her own hair.  And it is a simply "down low" pony tail.  I miss the days of pig tails so very badly.  And Feens' hair is entirely too wild and kinky to do anything with.  I fail at being the parent of black children, I swear.

First of Many

I'm back!

And do I have a story to tell.  I'll likely word vomit my way through the next month or so trying to get it all written out.  I've had other blogs but deleted them for various reasons.  This one, I hope, is here to stay permanently. 

I suppose there is no better time than the present so I will start there.

It's October.  And it's fricken hot outside and I hate that about the "South."  I put "South" in quotes because we're not really that southern.  Maybe to New Yorkers, but Mississippians surely would laugh in our faces if we tried to claim southern roots.  I'm ready for the chill in the air.  I'm ready for pants and hoodies.  I'm ready for the changing season to be upon us.  Instead I am a sniffling, sweating hot box who fights an urge every other day or so to jump on my "climate change is REAL" soap box.  I'll spare you all that level of drama so early into our relationship.

So how about some introductions?  I'm Jenna, I am the mother of two perfectly spectacular human specimens by the name of Bug and Feens.  (Of course they have real names but for now, we'll just stick with nicknames for the underage).  I am expecting my third daughter this winter.  Or maybe in about twenty minutes seeing as how she is violently trying to break out through my belly button.  Chill out, kid, I need more time.

I live with a caring, goofy, somewhat annoying man whom I have been madly in love with since about two or three weeks after our first date.  Our story is tumultuous and dramatic and downright entertaining and slowly, I'll start unearthing the very windy road that led us to where we are today.  It's both heartbreaking and inspiring, I assure you.  We had been together off and on for 3 years before we decided to get married.  I was 9.5 months pregnant and I wore an ugly black pant suit and pink Crocs and giggled through the ceremony at the Justice of the Peace's office at our local courthouse.  Three years later, we welcomed our second daughter.  When she was five weeks old, I asked for a divorce and just shy of her turning five months old, I left him.  Our divorce was finalized on December 12, 2011. We spent two and a half years apart but almost always wanting to be together.  I rocked single motherhood in the meantime and I vowed to never let my girls see me as a weak, co-dependent fool.  We talked for months about reconciliation.  I made him a list.  He disappointed me time and time again.  Then one day, he grew up.  No, really.  Okay, so he's not perfect.  But no one would ever be.  But he's perfect for me and for our girls.  And somewhere along the line, I grew up too.

 Just weeks after our decision to reconcile, we almost lost our youngest daughter.  We all four caught the flu but Feens didn't get better.  Two ER trips and a visit to her pediatrician later, she was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes and was in severe diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA). 

She was hours from death.  Her initial metabolic screens were bleak and she was in and out of consciousness.  I held my breath all night waiting for her PICU nurse to say she'd made a turn for the better.  She was discharged two days later with hundreds of dollars worth of insulin, syringes, ketone strips, alcohol swabs, test strips and a couple meters.  We were loaded up with pamphlets, booklets, worksheets, homework and stress.

Moral of this story:  I was wrong, I will use algebra again after college. 

We are now 10 months out from her diagnosis and I wouldn't exactly say we've got it all figured out as T1 is ever changing, but we're confident in our ability to keep her alive now.  She is on a fancy insulin pump and continuous glucose monitor that helps keep her blood sugar numbers level.  There is no such thing as a perfect science as it pertains to T1, but we're doing the best we can for her.

In the midst of all the newness of Feens' illness, I managed to get myself knocked up.  Not exactly a perfect plan but everything happens for a reason, right?!  We are about six months into this new adventure and we're all nothing short of stoked.  The girls are excited to be expecting a baby sister and Anton and I are excited to bring our family full circle.  This could very well be the last baby, who knows.

Like so many other bloggers, this is therapeutic to me.  I've always written to feel a sense of content in my soul.  This blog will mostly be about my life with my family.  I will talk about the first 7 years of our relationship, each of our babies, being a stepparent, my slow progression from the average conventional American mother to a semi-"crunchy", attached parent who boasts about nursing well into preschool-hood and gets giddy at the idea of making my own elderberry syrup.

It's been a very windy road to get to where I am now, but it's going to be a blast sharing it with all the crazy interwebs!